A group of human rights lawyers, including attorneys Benjamin Crump and Jasmine Rand, wrote a letter demanding the United Nations better protect Black people and other minorities who are trying to leave Ukraine.

According to CNN, Rand said in a March 2 news conference “People of African descent and Black people in Ukraine are facing, really, one war waged by Russians and another war waged against them by racism… These are war crimes that are being committed on top of being in an active war zone. This is really a continuation of what has become the Black Lives Matter movement. We have to ensure that Black lives matter in times of war and in times of peace.”

Crump added, “When you think about what we’re seeing in those videos and those images, it is heartbreaking because as Russia bombs the Ukraine, and it’s utter devastation, you think if there were a time for all of us to be together, it will be at this urgent moment. However, not only are they fighting for freedom, they are fighting for common decency in humanity.”

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The letter, which has been signed by lawyers in the U.K., Kenya, Nigeria and Jamaica, asks the UN to issue executive orders ordering governments to equally give minorities access across borders at the same rates as others.

As Russia ramps up its military aggression in Ukraine, more than 1 million people have fled the war-torn nation, according to a United Nations estimate. In the scramble to escape, the UN has condemned widespread racist discrimination by Ukrainian officials against people of African descent.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Tuesday (March 1) acknowledged the discriminatory practices in a tweet, saying that his government “spares no effort to solve the problem.”